Turtledroppings.com – Maryland Football And Basketball Blog

Early on in the Terps first round game vs NCST, it appeared there was not going to be a second round game.  Enter Eric Hayes off the bench.  He hit 3 first half three’s to steady the ship and stop the bleeding.  The first 10 minutes of the game looked like Maryland was sleep walking.  They were turning the ball over and missing shots at an alarming rate.  In one of my text messages to someone I said it looked like they were point shaving.  It was that bad.  With Hayes and Cliff Tucker, who hit a big three in the run, coming off the bench, the Terps chipped away and eventually got the game even at the half.  I was more than happy with that result.

The second half was more of a team scoring effort for the Terps.  Vasquez started the half early scoring 5 quick points.  He was not going to let them lose.  Vasquez also did an excellent job getting the ball to the open man.  Twice he found Dave Neal during that stretch where the teams were trading the lead for two huge three pointers.  Halftime didn’t slow down Eric Hayes as he canned two more three’s and made most of his free throws down the stretch to help put the pack away.  Hayes finished with a career high 21, and Vasquez added 17 points and 10 assist. 

So with this win, the Terps survive and advance.  They live to give us more gray hair, or less hair in some of my fellow Terp fans cases.  This game tugged at all of my emotions.  I was sick early.  Excited as they got back into the game.  Then just enjoyed watching some good basketball when the teams were going back and forth.  Then shock when they dropped the factoid that the Terps did not commit a turnover in the second half.  Wow.  Think about it.  No turnovers in the second half.  It is almost as if they needed every possession.  That was huge.  Finally I was elated as they put the game away at the line.

Check back tomorrow morning for a little more breakdown on this game as I let my thoughts settle down a bit.  I will also give a closer look at the pending Wake game.  So for now enjoy the win for a few minutes, and then prepare for the Deacs.  Go Terps!

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 12th, 2009 at 8:32 pm and is filed under Maryland Terps Basketball. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.